Until the End
by Galan
Summary: Even the best of things must eventually come to an end.
1. Sickness

So, yes, this is another slightly sad story. It is set in the 1960s, obviously in America. I do not own _The Sound of Music_ or any of the characters referenced.

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**Chapter 1: Sickness**

_"Fräulein, you will stay here, please!" Georg snapped, the words aimed at her retreating back. Her steps paused, and he thought he had a glimpse of her standing straighter, as though willing herself to be calm, perhaps to find her strength._

_"I, uh, think I'd better go see what Max is up to," Elsa said, glancing from Georg to this soaking wet young woman who still did not face him. She walked from the drenched landing quickly, and for that, if nothing else, Georg was grateful; he had no wish that Elsa see this, the creature that had turned his children into an embarrassment. Now the girl turned towards him, and though she was still dripping water, her face seemed steeled._

_"Now, Fräulein," he continued, closing his jacket pocket over the whistle he had just dropped within it, "I want a truthful answer from you."_

_"Yes, Captain?" she answered, her voice even and her face nearly impassive._

_"Is it possible or could I have just imagined it"—God only knew he wished he had—"have my children, by any chance, been climbing trees today?" That word was nearly a poison on his tongue, almost a sting to say._

_"Yes, Captain," she said again, with no question in her tone now, and a gentle smile on her face as she nodded._

_"I see." He still clutched the cloth he had ripped from Louisa's head between his finger and thumb, and he lifted it to his eye level, glancing askew at it. "And where, may I ask, did they get these, um, these, uh...?" Good Lord, did he_ want _to know?  
_  
_"Play clothes."_

_"Oh, is that what you call them?" There was something incredulous about that idea, that his children should be running about in clothes made simply for the purpose of them to play._

_"I made them," she said simply, "from the drapes that used to hang in my bedroom."_

_"Drapes!" He had to say that word again, be certain that he had heard her correctly. His children had been wearing_ drapes?

_"They still had plenty of wear left. The children have been everywhere in them."_

_"Do you mean to tell me that my children have been roaming about Salzburg dressed up in nothing but some old drapes!" Georg shouted, flinging that cloth from his daughter's head to the ground. God, but how could he have left his children here with this woman? There seemed nothing she was not willing to permit!_

_"Mm-hmm," she said, as though his words had passed over her without her hearing them. "And having a marvelous time!"_

Georg had to laugh whenever he thought back to that time, to the anger that had so suddenly burned within him—angered by the thought of his children simply playing. It was enough to bring a smile to him even here and now, sitting in this chair beside Maria as she turned in her sleep, brought to her only by some medication or another that the doctors had prescribed this week. Forever, it seemed, she had been in this hospital, lying in her bed day and night, a pained awareness breaking through even the toughest haze of medications the doctors had administered. And longer still since she had truly been well.

A general cloud of fatigue had hung over her for several years, though she had claimed it only to be the curse of age, a choice of words they had both laughed at. "If you are cursed," Georg had said to that remark the first time, "then I am surely forsaken at my age!"

Aches in her bones had come more recently, and now this fever that refused to break. It had never been serious, merely higher than her temperature should have been, yet it refused to die to a normal range. Clasping his hands together beneath his chin, Georg shook his head, his gray hair tumbling across his forehead. It left him feeling so weak, that he should only be able to sit here at her side, watch her struggle, and do nothing to aid her, nothing to give her peace. Even their children and grandchildren seemed unable to ease her pain. That, perhaps, frightened him more than anything.

In the past, whenever she had taken ill, whenever _either_ of them had taken ill, though it might simply be a few hours during the week, some time spent with their children and grandchildren was perhaps the best cure they had found. It seemed that the wish to be out and about with the family turned the will upon whatever malady afflicted the body. _Our own mind over matter,_ Georg thought. That it should now do no good for whatever ailed her...He shivered to himself.

_It is this damned hospital,_ Georg decided, glancing around the room another time, though it had not changed since he had last taken it in and cursed it an hour ago. Bare white walls and the scent of a disinfectant that pervaded his nostrils, hardly a place for his wife to get well. A woman fond of the outdoors, of climbing trees and hills, this sight and smell of institutional cleanliness could hardly be good for her. A hint of fresh air against that clean stench would, perhaps, help her, but the cold winter wind still moaned outside, whistling along the walls of the hospital, sure to whip at the thin curtains—

"Georg?" The voice that rose from Maria was weak, though stronger than he remembered hearing it earlier. Dropping his hands, he straightened in his chair, shifting forward to sit on the edge, nearer his wife.

"How are you feeling today?" he asked, reaching for one of her hands, twining his fingers with hers in a moment. He held a grimace close as he felt her sweaty, feverish skin clasped against his own cooler palm. Her face was pinker than he would liked to have seen beneath her gray-streaked blond hair, and her eyes seemed distant, as though she stared through the pain of whatever ailed her.

"Cold," she whispered, the word raspy in her throat. Georg tried not to frown; the fever still upon her was plain to be felt in her burning flesh. The thin sheets of her hospital bed would be doing nothing for the cold she surely had in her bones, the chill that made her joints ache simply to stand.

"Do you think you might be able to walk around for a bit?" he asked, tightening his grasp on her hand. A short walk would certainly do something for her strength.

"I would like that," she said, trying to return his gesture. Her fingers twisted with the sweat that covered them, and her hand slipped within his. She simply smiled, though Georg could see her eyes were not in it.

"That's not what I asked you," he said, shaking his head sadly, his own once dark hair entirely gray now. "Do you think you _could_, my love?"

"I don't know," Maria said, shrugging her shoulders as much as lying on her back would permit, her eyelids fluttering another time. "I just feel...so tired."

"Then you must rest, Maria," Georg said, leaning forward to press his lips against her too warm cheek. "Rest and become well again." Her hand tightened in his, slipping in that layer of sweat once more as she drifted into her fitful sleep another time.

His still powerful frame collapsing upon the chair once more, Georg sighed to himself, still holding her grip firmly. He would be here when she awoke, he had long ago decided that. Whether he remained here in this bare room with its harsh overhead lights and the meanest gleam of sunshine through the small window on the opposite wall for another week, he would be here for her.

Time and again, those cursed doctors, wandering in and out of her room with their stacks of papers and the results of yet another round of tests proving nothing but that infections still raged in her body, had implored him to return home for a day or so, to take some rest himself. There would be no change in her condition so quickly they assured him. No, he said each time that suggestion was proffered to him, he would be here when she woke.

He would not, _could_ not, abandon the woman he loved for even a moment in this trial, not when she had stood before a stubborn sea captain and forced him to see what he was so near to losing forever. That he should desert her for his own comfort—it was unthinkable. He wished to be nowhere but where he was, at her side, to be as much a strength for her as she had been for him.

_She deserves at least this much,_ he thought as his own eyes closed and his hold on her fingers lessened. He would always be here for her.

Always.


	2. Children

**Chapter 2: Children**

_"Now, __Fräulein...__uh..." He snapped his fingers, trying to find her name._

_"Maria, sir," she answered, smiling._

_"Fräulein Maria," the Captain began again, "I don't know how much the Mother Abbess has told you."_

_"Not much," the young woman said, shaking her head._

_"You are the twelfth in a long_ line _of governesses, who have come to look after my children since their mother died," he continued, clasping his hands behind his back. And the line was quite extensive: he had hired so many of these women, he felt he could sometimes tell from his first conversation with any governess just how long she would endure his children. "I trust that you will be an improvement on the last one. She stayed only two hours." He still despised himself for hiring_ that _one, for ignoring his instinct that had whispered she would fail, and quickly._

_This mere slip of a girl had an air of activity about her, much more than any of the dowdy older women who had for some time been the choices presented him to look after his seven children._ I might have mistaken her for one, _he thought, for she was dressed as any of those women might have, in a hideous gray dress with a canvas colored burlap jacket over her shoulders. And now, she wore a worried gaze. "What's wrong with the children?" she asked, tilting her head to one side, another question or two still shining in her blue eyes._

_He had begun to circle about her, his old habit of pacing returning to him. Often on his ship, he had found himself crossing the dock to and fro, knowing that his measured steps would do nothing about the enemy just sighted, but unable to cease those paces. "There's nothing wrong with the children," he said, pausing in his rounded path for a moment to fix her with a cool stare, "only the governesses."_

_"Oh," was her answer, and her blue gaze dropped to the tiled floor._

_"They were completely unable to maintain discipline," he went on, both his words and his steps. "Without it, this house cannot be properly run. You will please remember that, Fräulein."_

_By now, he had come around her completely, and she had to turn to answer him. "Yes, sir."_

_"Every morning you will drill the children in their studies. I will not permit them to—dream away their summer holidays." It would do them good, he knew, to learn now that life was to be about achievement rather than enjoyment. "Each afternoon, they will march about the grounds, breathing deeply. Bedtime is to be strictly observed, no exceptions..."_

_"Excuse me, sir," the girl said, stepping towards him, just visible from the corner of his eye, "when do they play?"_

_"You will see to it that they conduct themselves at all times with the utmost orderliness and decorum," he went on over her question as he reached into the pocket of his suit coat, fishing for his whistle. "I'm placing you in command."_

_"Yes, sir!" she answered, swinging her arm down from her brow in a salute as he raised an eyebrow. Had he truly seen that, this girl—_

"Sir?" a quiet voice said, and a gentle hand shook his shoulder. "Sir? Mr. Von Trapp?" Georg's eyes opened to the brilliant afternoon sun of winter streaming through the window across Maria's still sleeping form. Her hand had fallen from his and lay open on the thin coverlet, the sweat shining on her skin; he himself had slumped in his chair, his chin against his chest. Frowning for a moment as he sat straight in his chair, he lifted his free hand over his heart, beating more rapidly than was comfortable. A nurse had come in while they both slept, for once carrying neither a meal for Maria that his wife would only pick at nor some new medication her doctors felt would do her some good.

"Yes?" Georg asked, yawning as the pain in his chest dwindled. _Only worry,_ he said to himself. _Worry about Maria._ He had not meant to fall asleep, but his own exhaustion had taken over him. More often than not, he now felt that same fatigue that Maria had begun to suffer from years ago, but he did not feel nearly so foolish when he told himself that it was only the stiffness of age that slowed him. It was not the same with Maria, though. She was still too young to be so weak.

"You have visitors, sir," the young nurse said, a small smile on her face. "I think your wife would appreciate them."

"Who is it?" he asked, not wanting to wake Maria if it was but a friend. Any rest she found was fortunate, and they had visitors many times a day, from family to friends to neighbors to acquaintances from their parish. Friends and acquaintances could come back another day, another time when Maria was not resting.

"Several of your children."

"Oh," he said, reaching for Maria's thin fingers another time, the digits bending too easily into his grasp. "Please send them in." Though their children and grandchildren might no longer have that curative power they had once possessed, nothing but good could come of Maria seeing her family. To himself, Georg knew he was eager to see their children as well; he never complained and would not even dream of doing so, but it did grow lonely sitting at his wife's bedside, watching her strength vanish day by day.

"Yes, sir." The young lady walked towards the door, cracked open slightly as Georg tightened his hand on Maria's, wanting to draw her from sleep slowly. She turned in her sleep, letting out a heavy breath

"Maria," he said, shaking her hand—and most of her thin arm moved with the gesture as well. "Maria." He shook her hand harder.

"Hmm?" The sound was distant and her blue eyes were bleary as they opened, squinting against the sunshine. "What is it, Georg?"

"Some of the children are here," he said, pulling his chair closer to her bedside. It was an effort plain to be seen on her pale face as she smiled: skin pulling tightly across gaunt features, the faint tint of veins coloring tracks along her cheeks.

"It will be wonderful to see them," she said, her voice still difficult to hear. "It seems that it has been so long."

"Only a few days, Maria." That had been a length of time, though, as nearly every day one or other of the children stopped by.

"They seem longer." Her eyes turned toward the bedside table, to the carafe and glasses sitting atop a tray. "Georg, could you pour me a glass of water?"

"Of course," he said, not at all sad to have a reason to stand, although regretting that he was forced to slide his hand from Maria's. But her voice was hoarse, as if her throat was completely dry. He poured a liberal amount of water into the glass, then turned to his wife, offering it to her. She lifted her hand to the base of the glass, but her fingers shook, and Georg did not release the glass; he helped Maria press it to her lips and tilt it up, a bit of the water trickling into her parched mouth.

"Thank you," she said in a clearer voice as he set it atop the table once again, but Georg shook his head.

"Only ask, Maria," he said, twining his hand with hers as he sat another time. "There is nothing I will not do for you. I can't do enough for you, my dear. I never could." He bit a smile as his wife blushed; she never gave herself the credit she truly was due, in anything, least of all in what she deserved from him in return for what she had done.

"And the grandchildren?" she whispered, squeezing her husband's hand with what strength she could find.

"What?" he asked, clasping the fingers of his free hand around the arm rest of his chair. It would do Maria no good to worry about _him_, over these rushes of his heart.

"Will they have the grandchildren with them?"

"I don't know, but when have our children ever left _their_ children at home on a visit to us?" Even the pained grin on Maria's face was eased at that sentence.

"Perhaps once?"

"If that, my love," Georg said, lifting his free hand to push her hair back from her tired eyes. Even in her exhaustion, there was mirth in her gaze. "I've not been told who is here, but I dare say we shall know soon—" The door to the hallway always squeaked, Georg had noticed that from the first evening Maria had been admitted to the hospital, and now it squeaked open the remaining way to throw harsh electric light into the room. Turning his head to the sound, Georg smiled. The sight of his children could draw that expression easily.

Four of their children stood in the doorway: Liesl, her chestnut hair bearing strands of gray; Kurt, his cheeks round as when he was a child; Gretl, her face bright as ever; and Christian, their youngest son, set to graduate from college in the spring who was pushing his glasses along the bridge of his nose as he often did. The only one of their children in need of glasses, the spectacles were always slipping farther down his nose. "Hello, Father," Liesl said quietly, waving her younger siblings forward into the room.

"Hello to you as well," Georg said, his smile widening. "It's wonderful to see such familiar faces." In the past, he would have termed them cheerful faces, but even Gretl's usually smiling visage bore the traces of worry for their mother.

"Hello, Mother," Gretl said, crossing the space quickly to her mother's side and leaning down to kiss the older woman's pale cheek. In the middle of her thirties, Gretl had grown into a lovely young woman, her light brown hair still holding a hint of the curls it had possessed when she was a child. "You look better today."

Maria managed a tight smile. "Thank you, Gretl," she whispered, her voice still hoarse, and Georg lifted his hand to take the still filled glass of water a second time, reaching over to press it to his wife's lips once more. She drank gratefully and dropped her head to the thin pillow as he set the glass aside again, her short hair flying in every direction. Sinking into his chair again, Georg was grateful it was placed so close; his legs had felt shaky, as though he would have collapsed to the floor if the chair had not been there to break that fall.

"Do you have your children with you?" Maria asked the young woman standing on her other side, and the smile that had come onto Gretl's face at the quiet words of her mother lessened.

"Yes," she said, glancing down, "but the doctors would not allow us to bring them in to visit you. Katrina is looking after them for the moment."

"That's absurd," Georg said, shaking his head. Just a few days before, even the youngest of the grandchildren had been admitted into the room, and now Katrina was refused? It really _was_ absurd; the girl, Liesl's youngest child, was fifteen years old, certainly mature enough to be permitted to see her grandmother in the hospital. "They claim you need visitors and now they deny you those that have come to see you!"

"I'm sure they're only doing what they think is best," Liesl said quietly, stepping closer to her mother's bed, on the same side as Gretl. Kurt and Christian had joined their father. "They are only trying to help you, Mother."

"It would still be a joy to see them," Maria said as she pushed herself up against the pillows behind her. "It has been some time since I've seen them all." Even Georg could not remember the time since their entire family had been together.

Brigitta lived in Europe at the moment, where her husband was stationed on an army base in southern Germany. She had made no trips to Austria, though, or at least none that she mentioned in the letters she sent every month. Friedrich and his family had relocated to Massachusetts, still close enough for several visits a year, and Natascha, their youngest daughter, now lived in Pennsylvania, where she had finally found employment as a teacher after college. The rest of their children, however, lived within an hour's distance of them, near enough that the family met often. It still made Georg smile, knowing that he had seen so many of his grandchildren grow, and thankful for his wife, remembering how very near he had been to missing the same joy with his own children.

But now, more than ever, it was plain to see that the sight of her children did not ease whatever plagued her. The light in her eyes had shone for a moment, then faded as the joy of seeing four of her children failed before the memory of the pain. Seeing and knowing that brought curses into his mouth for the futility of it all, of this hospital and the doctors and their medication—if the children could not cure what ailed her, what could?

"Here," he said, tugging his hand from Maria's as he stood. "I'll go look in on them." It had surely been just as long since Maria had spent time alone with her children, certainly not since her admission to the hospital. Georg returned home only when he found himself unable to do anything else, and then only for a few hours at a time, nearly always when Maria had been given a sedative by her doctor; when at the hospital, he left her side only when she slept to walk the white halls another time, or to bolt some semblance of a meal. She deserved nothing less from him; but perhaps just a few minutes alone with those she loved so dearly would give her some comfort.

Maria's eyebrows rose, as if she did not understand, and he bent to kiss her gently, laying his hand on hers once more. "Sometimes," he whispered, "I think you might just wish to have time with only your children—and not with me."

She shook her head as best she could. "You have the silliest ideas from time to time," she said, her voice still sounding dry.

"Perhaps. But if Gretl has brought her youngest girls, I doubt even Katrina will be able to keep them in line." The question on her face faded a bit—both knew from their own experience how difficult Gretl's two youngest could be to manage—and Georg squeezed her hand gently, his fingers folding around hers easily. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"All right," she whispered, forcing a smile on her face before she turned to Liesl, who had pulled two chairs from beneath the window nearer to her mother's bed, one for herself and one for Gretl.

"How are you feeling today, Mother?" was the last bit of conversation Georg heard as he closed the door to the hallway. In his mind, there was no reason that the door to her room should always be left open, even if it were but a crack. Privacy was a thing not often found in the hospital—

"Grandfather!" a small voice shouted, and the sound of feet rushing toward him greeted his ears as Georg turned from the door. Yes, Gretl had brought her youngest girls—a set of eight year-old girls named Emily and Heidi—and both were running to him, heedless of the widening eyes of nurses in the hall and the orderlies with their trays. The others among his grandchildren present, ten ranging in ages from fifteen to eight as well, walked toward him instead of running, though he could see the same happiness in their eyes.

"Hello to you as well," he said as the girls clutched their arms around his waist, not able to reach much higher than that to offer him a hug. "You'd better be careful, though: make that much noise and your grandmother might hear you over your mother!"

"That's not true and you know it!" Emily said, pouting beneath her cloud of dark brown hair. Her face was identical to her sister's, and the only difference to be seen between them this day was that her hair hung around her shoulders, and Heidi's had been plaited down her back.

"Maybe not," he conceded, ruffling the curls on Emily's head as he bent nearer to her and her sister, "but there are others around you who might be trying to sleep."

"All right," she said, dropping her arms and stepping back. "But it's so good to see you!"

"As it is to see _you_," Georg said, tapping her nose as Heidi stepped back as well, into the crowd of children that had gathered about him. "And all of you." Many of the younger ones exchanged grins at that. Katrina, though, and one of Kurt's sons, Marcus, did not, offering one another worried glances.

"Grandfather," Katrina said, her voice soft as her mother's could be, "how is _Oma_ today?" Georg sighed as he looked up from a hand game that the twins had begun, to the sparkling blue eyes that were clearly Liesl's and reminded him of Maria just as easily. That question had been sure to come from her, and as he searched for the delicate words for his grandchildren's ears, he wished his heart would not beat so painfully.


	3. Clarity

Yes, another update; I was not expecting the story to be written so easily. I hope I have not messed up medical type things, and I guess if I have, I shall call it artistic license.

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**Chapter 3: Clarity**

_Maria's hair was smooth beneath his hand, her cheek warm on his shoulder, and her heart beat against his own. He heard a quiet sigh from her, and then her soft voice: "The Reverend Mother always says, 'When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.' "_

_Cupping his hands around her face, this woman that he loved, Georg smiled as he brought her eyes to meet his. "What else does the Reverend Mother say?" he asked. Whoever this wise woman was, he would have to thank her some time soon for sending Maria to him. Very soon.  
_

_"That you have to look for your life," she said lowly._

_"Is that why you came back?" he asked, and despite his hands around her face, Maria nodded, closing her eyes for a moment. "And have you found it—Maria?" It was almost a blessing to say her name, to hear it from his tongue and see the easiness on her countenance.  
_

_"I think I have," she said, and as he brought her face straight, she smiled. "I know I have."_

_Just as he had found his—by her side.__"I love you."_

Thirty years since those words had been spoken and still Georg felt their truth every moment. No matter where he might be, he had only to look at his wife—think of her, really—and that same love that had risen within him as he had first spoken those words filled him another time, as warm and pure as it had been in that moment. She truly had stopped him from stepping into another terrible situation, and in doing so, brought him to the greatest joy of his life: his family.

"You would surely say that I give you too much credit," he whispered, though Maria could not hear him. She had been offered another sedative by one of her doctors, and this one she had not protested against taking; the pain across her body was nearly constant now, and this blank sleep was often the only thing to mask it. "And you would be wrong once again." That would draw the familiar flush to her cheeks. "You never give yourself enough, my love." And she never would, he knew, only blush another time and say that it was the work of God. He smiled through a yawn in spite of himself and his worries; Maria was modest to a fault.

By now it was evening, the children and grandchildren had long since gone and the hospital had grown quiet, only the sounds of creaking trays and squeaking wheels filtering in from the hall; even the glaring sunshine from the window had faded into the timid glow of the moon. It had been several hours since he had last eaten, but Georg did not find himself hungry, only restless. Maria's sleep was utterly and unnaturally still, and somehow the sight of her so motionless unnerved him further. She would be asleep for some time more, he knew, and Georg stood from the chair where he had sat since the last of the children had departed.

His joints cracked as he reached his feet, and the clicking of his shoes against the white linoleum floor was louder than he wished in the room, as though the sound could waken his wife. It really was a preposterous thought; even in her own sleep, Maria could hardly be woken by anything, except perhaps the cry of a child. As he reached the door, he pulled the handle out from the hinges as he swung it in to silence the squeal as best he could, then stepped through and he drew it entirely closed behind him. Though she might not be woken by any of the noise of the hospital, no harm could come of giving her true quiet, if he could not offer her peace.

The hall was nearly empty as it was, a few nurses standing in their white uniforms behind the station at the far end of the hall, an orderlie pushing a tray around a corner, and a small collection of doctors talking quietly in an alcove, clipboards in their hands. His eyes narrowed at them, surely speaking about one patient or another, as though the men and women they treated were cases rather than people, individuals with lives, families, and others that they loved.

_How can they blind themselves?_ Georg asked himself as he began the first few steps of the walk he had taken several times daily since Maria's admission...he wasn't sure how long ago it had been since her arrival. The days and nights had blended together into a single, long memory of worry and weariness.

But he had to shake himself even as he walked, observing the breaths that were easy to find now; he had done what he accused those doctors of, divorced himself from those that surrounded him as well as any of these doctors could. And it was all the work of Maria, that work she refused to be thanked for, that had drawn him back. _You should thank her again,_ he thought, _when she awakens._

She would wave his words away, but he would have to speak them nonetheless. Even if the cheerfulness of their children, the knowledge of their grandchildren so close could do nothing for her, certainly those simple words that expressed better than any poet's pen ever could his debt to her would do something. _There must be something I can do for her,_ Georg thought as he rounded the first corner of the ward. _Something that will lift her spirits._

_The best you can do for that is to get her from this infernal place._ His gaze ran along the ceiling as he lifted his face for a moment, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jacket, his fingers chilled. _She loves the outdoors, the fresh air, the hills..._

But as much as she took joy in the hills surrounding their home, Maria loved Austria more than any of those simple things—the mountains and air were merely what Austria was built from. "And edelweiss," he said to himself, turning the next white corner. Maria would have been appalled if he had neglected that simple flower. Their home in Virginia's countryside was as similar to that beloved country they had left that Georg believed it was possible to find, but for the edelweiss. True, it did not snow nearly as much—they had lived in America for several years and their youngest daughter had even been born before snow blanketed the ground for Christmas's midnight mass—but the land was near as breathtaking as Salzburg.

Often Georg wondered to himself if he should have returned to his homeland, if only for a short visit, but the more he considered the idea, the more he was pleased with his decision. _Dream of the past,_ he had told himself, _and you forget the future._ A clean break was less painful than reigniting the lingering memories.

Turning into the next hallway, the hospital's chapel came into his sight, the dark wood of its door startling against the stark white of the walls that pressed against it on either side. Twice in the first few days, before her strength had begun to ebb away swiftly, he had helped Maria walk to the small chapel, offered her his arm as she lowered herself to her knees before she closed her eyes in wordless prayer. Though he walked by the room each day as she slept, Georg had not found the will to enter on his own; any words from his heart might now be curses on God rather than praise or prayer. She might have restored him to his children and mended a faith nearly shattered, but he still had not Maria's conviction.

_One of my own faults,_ he thought as he entered into the final hallway, that same one that led to Maria's room. He had time and again considered asking her just how she maintained such faith even in the face of everything they had been through—fleeing from a country overrun, working from nothing in a new land, struggling against a prejudice that rose even now with the faint traces of German seeping into their English, but he never had. _When she wakes up_—

"Mr. Von Trapp," one of the nurses from the station called as he passed, the same young woman who had woken him earlier in the day.

"Yes?" he said, pausing, only then realizing the breath catching harshly in his lungs, the pain of exhalation biting. It was almost a wonder that she had noticed him, for the nurses were nearly always bent over some paperwork or attending to a patient, far too busy to be bothered by a familiar man roaming the halls.

"Dr. Gilford came by your wife's room while you were gone."

"What did he want?" Georg asked, hoping his contempt for the man could not be heard in those words. After the length of time Maria had been under his primary care, he would have thought that this doctor should have made some progress.

"He would like to see you in his office, sir."

"Thank you," he said, keeping any disdain from being directed at this nurse. It was not her fault that a solution eluded his wife's doctor. But several days had passed since he had found an occasion to visit the man's office, and Georg was not too proud to ask, "Where is his office, miss?"

* * *

"I thank you for coming," the doctor said, waving his hand toward the chair before his desk. Georg settled himself into the wooden frame cautiously, his legs aching with the effort of walking from the ward where Maria was to this office, most of the length of the floor. Moving around the desk to seat himself, Dr. Gilford pursed his lips, a simple gesture that troubled Georg. 

"Not at all," he said, forcing a smile. Whatever he might learn, he wasn't sure he could ever find himself capable of anything more than endurance for this man. "Anything you have to tell me about my wife I am grateful for."

"Mr. Von Trapp," the doctor said, leaning forward across his desk, "I'm afraid that we have at last diagnosed your wife's illness."

_Afraid?_ "Yes?" Georg said, his stomach tensing. But, what could the worst be, that Maria was seriously ill? That he already knew. Yet there was a sense of dread within him, that some terrifying ordeal set before Maria rested in this doctor's mind just on the opposite side of this desk— There it was again, that haphazard beating of his heart, the quickening of its pulses that forced him to take swifter breaths. _Afraid of what?_

"We believe your wife is suffering from lupus, sir, and very badly, I am afraid."

"Wh—what does that mean?" Georg stammered, that disquiet deep within him intensifying and drawing his heart quicker. He had never heard of this disease—_lupus_, the doctor had said?—yet it sounded worse than that for which he had steeled himself.

"It is an autoimmune disorder, Mr. Von Trapp," the doctor continued, clasping his hands together as he glanced down to his desk, his eyes trailing across his patient's file. The confusion only heightened in Georg, and he supposed his unspoken question had become apparent on his face, for the doctor continued. "Her immunse system has begun to turn on her body, sir, and is beginning to recognize its own normal functions as agents of disease."

"So," Georg began, running his palm across his face, surprised the skin remained so cool, "all these infections she has had over the past years—"

"Merely symptoms of the greater disease," the doctor finished as he reached upwards to push his spectacles from the tip to the bridge of his nose. "She has exhibited some of the most common signs: infections, aching joints, fatigue..."

"What can you do for her?" Georg asked, shifting back in his chair. The thumping of his heart was painful now. "What sort of treatment—or therapy—"

"Mr. Von Trapp," the doctor said, his voice louder than before, "this is not a simple disease. Five years after diagnosis, the survival rate stands at just below fifty percent, assuming that the disease is caught and treated from its inception."

"The inception?" Georg repeated. From the start of the disease? If this man meant the beginning of the symptoms he claimed marked her for this ailment, then it was years in the past, far longer than the five years he quoted!

"Yes, Mr. Von Trapp, and given the fatigue and infections your wife has had over the past few years, I believe she has suffered with it for quite a while. Longer than many, but enough that I cannot discern any treatment that will fight the disease quickly enough." He lifted up a hand to now slide his spectacles from his nose and laid them across his patient's file; he despised these conferences, having to speak those words no man ever wished to hear.

"Surely there is _something_ you can do," Georg said, standing from his chair despite the further quickening of his heart; he hardly knew his words anymore. "Some medicine, anything—"

"Mr. Von Trapp," Dr. Gilford said, shaking his head as he folded his hands again before him on his desk, heedless of the words he had cut off once again; the plain fear on this man's face wrenching as he fell into silence. "Sir, your wife is dying."


	4. Resignation

**Chapter 4: Resignation**

_"__Liesl,__"__ Georg called from the hall, and his oldest child turned toward him, a hint of a smile still on her face. Singing again—he had overheard the last bit of the song she and her mother had shared. But having caught her gaze, he beckoned her to come forward with a finger. She rose quickly, no longer even with that small smile, and crossed the room to the door, almost passing him before he caught her arm. Now more than ever, he wanted none of the children to worry, least of all about his silence, and he patted her cheek with the back of his hand, hoping to be reassuring. She truly was her mother's child, in manner and face as she smiled once again and hurried out of the room.  
_

_"__What it is?__"__ Maria asked quietly, standing as well and coming meet him at the door. Her hands were clasped together before her, and he wondered if she could guess from his face what he needed to tell her.  
_

_"__Berlin,__"__ he said simply, offering the unfolded telegram to her for a moment. She hardly even glanced to it, though, more at the floor, so he bent the cable along its creases once more. __"__They've offered me a commission in their navy. I've been _requested_ to accept immediately and report to their naval base at Bremerhaven tomorrow.__"_

_"__I knew something like this would happen,__"__ Maria said in a small voice as his face came up once more. __"__I didn't think it would be so soon.__"_

_Neither did I, __Georg wanted to say, but he held those words to himself, instead fiddling with the paper in his hands. __"__To refuse them would be fatal for all of us. And joining them would be—__unthinkable.__"__ Shaking his head, there was only one solution he could see as he drew his wife close with an arm around her shoulder. He kissed her forehead, then began to walk into the entry hall as her arm came around his waist. He was incredibly fortunate to have her, he knew; without her, he would be lost now.  
_

_The foyer was as beautiful as ever, and it would linger in his memory, for however long he lived. __"__Get the children all together,__"__ he said. They would need as much time to prepare as possible. __"__Don't say anything that'__s going to make them worry. Just get them ready. We've got to get out of Austria, and this house...__"__ He glanced around the front hall once again. __"__...tonight.__"__ He could feel the nervousness in Maria__'__s body, the soft tremors in each gentle curve of her body that he had come to know well over the past month, and he pulled her into a warm embrace, wishing that he could take her pain.__  
_

All those years before, he had been able to share that fear and pain with her, but now even that was locked away from him, solely within her. _Dying._ A dozen, a hundred, a thousand curses had wanted to erupt from Georg's tongue as that word had left the doctor's mouth. _"Your wife is dying."_ His own mouth had gone dry, though, his heart had pounded even more furiously, and he had found himself unable to speak, even to protest, to say that surely he was wrong. Nearly in a daze, Georg had stumbled back to Maria's room, searching for any chance this man should be mistaken. _No,_ he had told himself again and again, _it's not true, dammit, it's not true!_ It simply could not be.

But sitting beside Maria once more, watching her sleep grow more and more restless as the sedative wore off, he knew there was no reason to deny it. Every infection, every ache and pain over the past years: he had watched her die piece by piece, and never known what he saw. _Just one part of her after another,_ he thought, _and you couldn'__t see it._ Shaking his head, Georg could sit no longer and he nearly leapt from his seat, ignoring the burning pain in his lungs as he did not breathe quick enough through his walk to the window, his footsteps hollow in his ears.

From the fourth floor window, the asphalt of the parking lot below, its shimmering heat waves absent now that evening had descended, felt as far away as the stars above. Those stars might as well have been God for all he could care, just as far, as out of reach. He would have to try to find her faith, he told himself as he turned back to his wife, without her example to set his path. Once before he had allowed the emptiness of that brokenness to consume him, but he would not allow that again; even against the pain of losing her, that ache was too much to bear.

These final days Maria had passed in this hospital, unresponsive to any medication her doctors presented, other than sedatives, had prepared him for that pronouncement, though the words themselves still came as a shock. He should take this time while she lay fairly still to begin the calls to their children and the letter to Brigitta and her family, but he wanted to spend this last time with her—days, weeks, months, Dr. Gilford had not delved into how much life Maria still had—even if he merely saw her pain, or the blankness of her sleep.

When she woke, he meant to tell her; she deserved to hear it from no one else he decided as he walked back across the room to his chair, the pain in his chest too much to bear standing. Even now her eyes were fluttering as she turned her head from side to side and a quiet moan rose from her throat. Her voice was hoarse and difficult to hear: "Georg," she whispered. "Where are you?" He opened his mouth, but still he could not speak as he finally collapsed to sit.

Profanities that would redden Maria's face even in this doze were all that would leave his mouth at the moment, so he bit his lip as he folded his hands beneath his chin. She would awaken soon, he could see, for her body now remembered its pain. In whatever time it was that the doctor had not told him, he would never hear her voice again, hear her sing or laugh or speak in her gentle way. It was all Georg could do to hold the stinging tears back, pressing his face into his palms and swallowing against the cry in his own throat.

_Not again! _he wanted to scream at God, and curses would follow. Why should he have to watch his wife die again and lose himself in the grief and hurt once more? Just the thought of being without her seared him, burning more deeply and painfully than any ache of his body, and the knowledge that he could do nothing for her only deepened that pain.

"Georg," her voice came again, and he pulled his hands from his face to see her turned toward him, her eyebrows dipping as the final vestiges of groggy rest drained from her mind. He wondered if his eyes were red with the tears he had shed, the tears that were wet on his hands. "Georg, what's wrong?"

_Everything,_ he wanted to say as he reached for her hand, rubbing his thumb over the feverish skin. But Maria would hardly appreciate his saying everything was falling apart around them. _Tell her the truth,_ he told himself. _Hold no false hope for her._

"I spoke with Dr. Gilford while you were asleep," he said as he tried to smile, anything to keep his mind from what he had to tell her.

"Are they—any closer to a diagnosis?" Maria asked, turning her palm beneath her husband's hand.

"Yes. Truthfully, my love, they've arrived at one." _Tell her. She has more right to know than you!_

"Yes?" Her eyes were eager, nearly hopeful for a moment, and she had a small smile on her face. That hope would do her more harm in the long run, Georg knew; best to dash it now rather than later, when its lingering would become bitter. "What is it?"

"There is no good news," Maria," he said quietly, lacing his fingers tightly in hers, her hand shivering in his grasp. "This disease that they have diagnosed, if caught and treated at its beginning, has a—a five year survival rate of less than fifty percent, and, well, Maria..." His voice fell to silence. How could he tell her that her doctor had admitted that even with all the science and medicine in the world, she was still dying.

But her eyes widened after a few seconds, and her smile vanished as her skin blanched. "Maria, I..." Still, the words would not come.

"There's nothing they can do, is there?" she asked, the hope fading into her pale face.

Georg shook his head, his throat almost too tight to speak. "No." He wondered if he had expected tears from her, or some anger, yet all he saw was peace. Not happiness—no, far from it!—but peace, a resignation perhaps as she closed her eyes, another grimace of pain filling her face.

"Do you need something, my love?" he asked, reaching out his other hand to her arm, his fingers easily wrapping around her thin, wasted muscles, and as her eyes opened, he breathed easier. The foolishness of his words nearly brought him to laughter, though. _Of course_ she needed something—she needed to be with her children and grandchildren, she needed to be released from this prison. She _needed_ her health once again! "We can still pray, Maria, ask that God will do what is best in His sight." His faith was easier to remember now, speaking to her.

"Yes," she said lowly, tightening her hand in his as best she could, but her spirit was not in her word. "That is all we can do anymore." Her hold on his hand was almost painful now, a sudden burst of strength that gave Georg a quiet hope himself. "But take me home, Georg."

"What?" he asked, raising his face that had dropped. "I'm not sure if that is wise, Maria. The doctors might find something to ease your pain here, and they might discover they are wrong—" He stopped his words as she shook her head, her blue eyes shining with the tears she held as her graying hair scattered against her pillows.

"Let me be there, at home," she whispered. "Let me..." Her words trailed to nothing, but Georg knew what she meant to say next, and he smiled his assent against the pain in his own chest. _Let me die there._


	5. Joy in Sorrow

**Chapter 5: Joy in Sorrow  
**

The newly completed letter to Brigitta in his hand, Georg's steps to the mailbox at the end of their driveway were slow; this final notification, and the future seemed sealed to that fate the doctors had pronounced just days ago. The day after that horrible conversation, Maria had been released from the hospital, and even as he helped her into their car, her face had looked brighter, her eyes happier, as though some doom had been lifted from her shoulders. For the most part, her time in their home had been more restful than that she had passed in the hospital, and to himself, Georg was certain that the presence of their children and grandchildren would aid her even more.

Those phone calls to their children, though, he did not believe he had ever performed a more difficult task in his life, even in the war. Speaking those words to every child had been near impossible, but to break that news to Liesl had hurt him nearly as much as it had her. She and Maria had been close since before they had been mother and daughter, since that night his wife had protected the girl from his anger—the first evening any of them had known Maria. He had not only to tell her that she was to lose her mother again, but that she would lose a very dear friend.

But the mailbox had come up at his side and Georg raised the letter to his sight for a final time: addressed to Brigitta Macomber, it bore no trace of the sad tidings it contained, and it did nothing for his heart to think of his daughter's face when she opened the envelope to find those words that had taken him days to pen. Opening the door of the box, he dropped it inside and closed the door, before the sadness overwhelmed him. Best that Brigitta knew now rather than later, from him than one of her siblings. He hoped she would be able to come, even if only for a short time; it did not seem right that she should miss seeing her mother a final time.

Turning back to their house, Georg could not hold his smile in spite of the sadness clawing at him: Maria still sat on the porch of their home, just where he had helped to walk before he had made his way to mail that letter, her legs wrapped in a blanket and her arms with a shawl. She sipped a cup of tea, her hands wrapped around the white mug, and the steam of the warm liquid rose before her face, perhaps pleasant in the mid-morning chill of winter. That sight of her so peaceful was enough to soothe any pain of his own, and his gait quickened along the gravel drive.

Their home was in the midst of the countryside of Virginia, where the ground rolled in gentle hills and burst into shocks of wildflowers when the chill of winter mornings such as this one broke for the warmth and wetness of the spring. As they had first seen the house all those years before, Maria had tightened her hand in his, whispering that the surrounding area reminded her of Austria; they had looked nowhere else for a home.

"How are you feeling this morning?" Georg asked as he gained the steps leading from the hard ground to the porch and his wife smiled at him, though her face was still pale.

"Better," she said, lowering her mug of tea to the blanket covering her legs.

"I'm glad to hear it," he said, reaching the flat wood of the porch. The space between them closed swiftly and he bent to kiss her cheek. "You look better here."

"Home is a better medicine," Maria said simply as Georg settled himself in the chair across the small wicker table from her.

"Better than a hospital, leastwise."

"Yes," she said with a nod of her head, raising her tea for another sip. If he had thought, Georg would have brought a cup of coffee for himself when he had helped Maria walk from the house. In the fresh air and within her home, the weakness that had overcome her in the hospital had faded after a few days; while in the hospital, even a short stroll had been an exertion, and now, though she needed his arm for support, they walked together for a good time every morning. It would help her keep her strength, Georg thought.

Perhaps it was simply that she no longer bothered with the medications her doctors had prescribed, the pills that sat unopened on her bedside table. Her awareness was more vibrant, and until the pain overtook her, Georg would not even make the suggestion that she return to the regiment she had taken during her time in the hospital; he loved her too dearly to see her struggle beneath the weight of the medication's haze.

"You're thinking, aren't you?" Maria said, and Georg's eyes returned to her; they had gazed past her for a few moments, fixed on the green trees. "You always seem far away when you think, dear."

"A habit that can't be helped, I'm afraid."

"I wouldn't ask it of you," she said, laughing as she reached across the table separating them for his hand. "It's too much a part of you, and I wouldn't have you change any part of yourself for the world."

"Not anything?"

"Perhaps only what you take on yourself," she said with a smile. "You try to carry too much, Georg. You always have."

"I wouldn't term that a fault," he said, wrapping his fingers around her thin hand, the flesh cool despite the mug from which she had just removed her hand. "Not when I can keep you from worrying about whatever might trouble you, especially now."

"But if it does, as you say, trouble me, then there is not much you can do for my peace of mind—all you will do is burden yourself." Her smile dimmed as her fingers went limp in his hand. "Georg, whatever you do, don't try to carry everything now. I love you more than I ever have—"

"Maria," he began, but she shook her head, blinking quickly against a tear or two.

"I do, Georg, and more than anything, I don't want what we have had for so many years to change, just because..." Her voice faded. "Promise me that, Georg. Don't try to do everything yourself. You tried it once, darling, and it didn't work."

He squeezed her hand, his fingers so much stronger than hers. "If that is what you want, Maria. You know that I can deny you nothing." Even as a cool breeze wound along the porch, he smiled. "I never could."

"I know. You could hardly say no to the children, either, if it meant spending time with them."

"I learned my lesson well, my love, about leaving them in the care of another," Georg said, drawing her hand up and kissing the back of her palm gently, "particularly if that caregiver should be a troublesome nun. Though I was very glad of the instruction." His wife blushed, and he reached his other hand across to her face, tracing a long finger across her cheek. "More than anything I can recall."

"It would only have been a matter of time," Maria said, the flush not fading from her face under his caress, "until you would have seen what you were missing on your own."

"If you say so, then I am sure that it is true," he said, now covering her cheek entirely with his hand. "But I am very glad of the way that things did work out. You will never convince me to be anything but that, Maria."

"I wouldn't dream of trying," she said, tightening the blanket around her legs. "Because so am I."


	6. Strength and Weakness

**Chapter 6: Strength and Weakness**

"Are you sure you still feel quite all right?" Georg asked, tightening his hand around Maria's wrist. Her frame was thinner than ever, and her face seemed wasted if the light hit her profile at the proper angle. When she had first suggested this short walk, he had thought she appeared tired, but a glint in her eye had warned him against protesting.

"Yes," his wife said, slapping his arm gently with her free hand, laughing to herself. "You really do worry too much."

"It's hardly just worry, Maria, when it's what can't be helped—" He meant to say more, but he held the remaining words. They had not truly spoken about the fate that had been pronounced for her, not since her final days in the hospital, and neither of them wished to. What would come would come, and it would arrive when it did, whether they willed or no; there was no use in remembering what lay before them.

Maria seemed to have put the inevitable from her mind, as though she had never heard those words and known that she had but a short time left with those she loved. For himself, at night as he watched her sleep, the rest at last peaceful despite the absence of the hospital sedatives, Georg could think of nothing but what was to be. In such a short time, he would be alone once again. Oh, he would not do what he had done before—he prided himself on being a man who learned from his errors—yet he could find no way to ease the ache that would come with her passing. Even now, the only cure was to simply look at her, whether she be asleep or awake and looking back, and remember everything they had shared. But the sting of that coming emptiness rose swiftly, and despite his will, the tears he knew would certainly be shed after the time had come slipped from his clenched eyes each day.

"There are so many memories here," Maria said quietly, and Georg glanced to her, his mind pulled back.

"Well, of course," he said, slowing to match his wife's pace, the length of her strides lessening. She was tiring, even in the cool of the late winter's afternoon. Her strength had returned to a point after her release from the hospital, but the vitality she had possessed as a young woman, or even a few years ago was foreign to her now. "How could anything else be true."

"With our children, I suppose you're right."

"Only suppose, my love?"

"Fine—I'll _admit_ you are right, Georg," Maria said, stopping in her walk to raise her free hand to her shoulder, tightening the shawl around her body. Not releasing her grasp, Georg offered his own free hand to help her, shifting the knitted layer on the shoulder she could not reach.

"I'm flattered, Maria," he said as he smoothed the shawl. "You do not say that very often."

"If it is true, I shall. And thank you," she said, turning her face up to his with a small smile.

"Anything to please you," he said, leaning to kiss her.

"Do you remember the day Natascha fell out of that tree?" she asked as he straightened and dropped his hand from hers to loop his arm around her waist. He followed her gaze to an oak tree, the roots sprawling out beneath the shadow of its thick branches, every bit of the wood knobbly and bare, wanting the buds of spring and leaves of summer. The girl had found herself in quite an accident there, tumbling from several meters.

"The first or second time?"

"The first," Maria said with a laugh, leaning against his body. "She didn't seem nearly so pained the second time."

"Or leastwise she didn't complain nearly so much about her arm. Perhaps Louisa spoke to her about it," Georg said, rubbing his hand on his wife's waist, "and taught her the proper way to fall. She managed to do the same thing herself as a young girl, in Austria. But then you might have been able to instruct her as well."

"Not when I had to look after all our children," Maria said, slipping her hand beneath the one he rested just above her hips. "There would never have been enough time to do both, though each would have its share of enjoyment."

"You certainly had time—_and_ the energy!—enough to keep after Erik and Theo when they ran after Gretl," Georg said as he threaded his fingers with hers, the skin cool against his. "They always seemed to think they were chasing her when she simply let them tag along. She always did seem a great help for dealing with the younger ones."

"All of our children were. We were so fortunate in that, Georg," she said, taking a tentative step, though not loosening at all the hold her husband had on her. He went with her, not challenging her pace.

"I will agree with you on that. Even the oldest played among themselves in that manner when they were the young ones." Georg smiled to himself. "Liesl never seemed to mind when Friedrich and Louisa ran her ragged around the lake in Salzburg."

"There were so many memories there, in Austria," Maria said, every step she made cautious. In the morning, she had found herself dizzy, almost unable to make her way down the staircase from their bedroom, and Georg knew she had no mind to test her balance now. He would have made certain that she did not if she were foolish enough to disregard that.

"Of course there were," he said, that familiar pang of sadness and loss rising with the thought of his native land, matched by the quiet tone of his wife's voice. "I don't think it is possible, Maria, to love a place so very much and forfeit that love when you are forced to leave it."

"I do wish that the younger children could have spent some time there. At times, I feel as though—as though they are missing something that is a part of the rest of us."

"That's just a thought, Maria," Georg said, lifting his hand from around her waist to grasp her other hand, both simply to hold and to help her balance. "This is our home now, not Austria. And that home that we left is as much a part of them as it is of us, my love—it colors everything that we have done, and has had its own touch on them."

"I like that," she said, smiling. "This really is our home. It's what we've made our own."

"It has been for years. But, speaking of homes, Maria, we should begin to make our way back to our own. Louisa and her family will be there for dinner, and I dare say they shall soon begin to wonder where we are."

"It is late, isn't it?"

"The sun will be going down in a half hour," he said, glancing to the western horizon, already shot with the golden red tones of sunset. _If that long_, he thought. "I believe she should have the girls with her this time."

"That's a thought to cause hurry."

"True," Georg said, biting a grin as they turned, ready to tread that path another time, the image of a young, pretty, and very late postulant rushing into a dining room, only to sit on a pine cone. "We wouldn't want you to be late to dinner again..."

"You shall never let me forget that, will you?" Maria said as they began the walk back, the trees surrounding their home just visible over the hilltop.

"The moment I became completely enchanted by you?" He smiled as she blushed, and he squeezed her fingers gently. "Never, my love."

* * *

Sorry about the delay in getting this written/posted. In the midst of my novel, beginning a collaboration with someone I work with, work, school, and teaching myself Japanese, something gave and it was this. Hopefully the rest should not take so long. 


	7. Approaching

**Chapter 7: Approaching**

"Your mother tells me that you are the one most fond of music among her children," Maria said as she took her hand from Georg's arm, dropping into the chair that sat beside the piano in their living room. Beneath his dark hair, Ryan, Brigitta's twelve year old son, colored, and Maria laughed gently as she reached for the afghan beside the chair. It had long ago been a gift from Marta; during the period of bed rest ordered by her doctor while expecting her second child, she had taught herself the basics of crocheting, and had passed most of that time refining her skills.

"Yes," he said, not looking to her face. Among Brigitta's children, Georg had been most surprised that Ryan, her youngest and only son, took the most after her, though the boy had a modesty that Georg had only ever seen in Maria. Shy and an avid reader, whenever the family could make a visit from her husband's current station, Ryan was scarcely to be seen but over the top of a thick book, one or two of which Georg suspected were printed in German; he had had no close examination of even the spines, as he had either been swamped by the other children or Brigitta had cleared the books away as soon as her hands could be laid on them, forgetting all the family gatherings she herself had spent buried in such books.

Truthfully, he would be surprised if he was wrong. Though none of their children had allowed their mother tongue to die among their families, he would have picked Brigitta to be the one to ensure its survival. Indeed, each of her four children spoke the language fluently, if not as well as English, and she had been taking strides to teach her husband as well. He was born and bred an American, his progenitors hailing from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Germany, and France, and those nationalities were only those known from the family's Bible; there might well have been more, as was common with Americans.

"That doesn't mean too much, Mother," Brigitta called from across the room; she and her husband, Richard, were clearing away the remains of the dinner the family had shared. "They are all very fond of music, and talented as well."

"Not that you expected anything different," Richard said lowly, taking a bowl as Georg reached the table.

"No, but I was still pleased to see how well they enjoy it," she said, snaking her arm around her father's hand to grasp a glass. In the three days that the family had been in their home, Georg doubted he or Maria had done more than what they had been able to persuade Brigitta was of no difficulty, or that which could be done out of her sight. "Don't worry about this, Father. Richard and I—"

"It's no trouble," Georg said, shaking his head and picking up a plate before either his daughter or her husband could seize it first. "I doubt any of them will mind if we let them be for a time." Brigitta's eyes darkened for a moment, and Richard glanced over his shoulder to their children and Maria. Ryan, it seemed, had been persuaded to display his talent for his grandmother and sisters, and was running his fingers along the gleaming black and white keys in a song that seemed familiar to Georg. No doubt it was; he had heard most songs that would be within the boy's capabilities many times before, when he and Maria had taught their younger children the instrument.

"How is Mother?" Brigitta asked beneath the rising and falling chords, biting her lip after a moment, though whether in wonder over her mother's condition or irritation that he had taken another plate, Georg was not certain.

"As well as can be expected," he said, keeping himself from looking back to his wife. Not much more could be said for her condition. Maria had a standing appointment with Dr. Gilford on each Thursday morning—she had specifically selected that day so as to allow herself to recover the longest span of days to recover for the time she spent with the young children's choir at their church, each Wednesday evening—and since her release from the hospital, the news he gave them had been worrisome at best. In spite of the doctor's pronouncement that nothing could be done for Maria, Georg had insisted the man continue with some sort of treatment, and he had done so with zeal, considering one therapy after another, trying this or that even as he believed it would come to naught, never voicing such despair. This morning, though, his words had not even been so kind as to be optimistic.

"Mr. Von Trapp," he had said, speaking lowly as his nurse helped Maria gather her things to prepare for the journey home, "the disease is progressing quite rapidly—quicker than I had expected."

"Yes?" he had said, unable to find any other word able to pass through his throat, suddenly tight. "And—what does that mean?"

"I had expected that in time I should be able to find some sort of medication that would treat the worst of it, perhaps prolong her fight against it, but with this..." His voice trailed as he glanced back to Maria, smiling at some comment of his nurse, a hint of color crossing her pale face. "There will be no time for us to try the medications that I had planned."

"Why not?" Georg had not understood it then—damn it all, he _still_ did not! If she had so little time, why not simply try one medication or the other?

"These prescriptions will require a carefully monitored intake, Mr. Von Trapp, and a gradual increase that would take perhaps even months." He stole another look at Maria, now wrapping her red knitted shawl around her shoulders with his nurse's aid. "Your wife does not have so much—time left." To Georg's eyes, this man was tense, as though even his years of practice as a doctor had not steeled him for speaking such words.

"How much, then?" _I should be angry with him,_ Georg had thought then, but even now, he didn't care. He wanted to feel that rage, hate someone who had laid this fate in front of them both—in front of them all!

"Weeks, sir, perhaps less." Somehow, in spite of the recovery of energy that had come over Maria when she had returned home, her health still failed, swifter now than ever.

God, he wanted so very much to hate this man, but he could not find it in him. To hate him on her behalf, that would only hurt Maria even more—and he wanted nothing less than that. All he could do now was to ease her mind and heart, and curse himself that he could do nothing else. If any person deserved to be hated, it was himself, for never seeing what should have been plain, that she was not well, had not been for years!

"What does that mean, Father?" Brigitta asked, pulling Georg's mind back from the morning. He had insisted her family remain, that whatever came of the appointment, he would tell her when they returned; but when those four children rushed from the front door, scrambling around one another to help their _oma_ from the car—Maria insisted they call her such, and every one of their numerous grandchildren was happy to do so—he had been unable to pull Brigitta aside to tell her Maria's sentence of only a few weeks, that this was the final visit she and her family would make to see both her parents.

"There was no good news, was there?" Richard asked, piling the remaining silverware into the bowl he held. How was it that once the subject had already been approached, speaking on it was simpler?

"No," Georg said, swallowing against the sudden lump in his throat, despite the lessening of the task. It would be better, and easier, to simply say it now, and be done with it—no, it would never simply be _done_, but it would be easier. "He said she has only a few weeks left. He had not expected the—the—" He wanted to say more, but his heart raced again, its beating rapid and irregular in his chest, his vision swimming and darkening despite the light of the room. Even his breaths were difficult to catch.

"Father?" his daughter said, her voice far away though she only stood at the opposite side of the table. It echoed in his mind, wavering up and down. "Father, what's wrong."

"No—nothing," he stammered, settling his plates onto the table another time, desperate to keep from clutching at his heart. It was not simply beating too quickly; no, now the muscle ached, throbbed, even, a dull pain one moment and a searing burn the next.

"Yes there is," Brigitta began, but he waved a hand, shaking his head against his good sense. What was wrong with him?

"Don't think about me," he said as his eyes cleared, his breath returning. "Just—your mother, Brigitta, she has too much to handle right now to begin worrying about me." The pain had begun to recede, settling to that ache it had cycled through, fading as soon as it had risen.

"I don't care, Father—"

"Brigitta," her husband began, but Brigitta shook her head, her dark hair, just bearing the first traces of gray and still worn long, slipping over her shoulders.

"No, Richard—Father, you need to take care of yourself as well—"

"Young lady," Georg rasped through his breathlessness, feeling as though he were simply speaking to his daughter when she were but a child, and right now, that was all she was—his child that he loved and wished to protect, not a woman, "I have more things on my mind—"

"What are you talking about?" None of them had been expected Maria's voice and Georg knew his face must look as guilty as his daughter's and her husband's as they turned to Maria and her grandchildren, Ryan now standing from the piano, his song finished. His sisters, all older than himself and ranging in ages from seventeen to thirteen, as well as he had followed their grandmother's gaze, and every face was worried. Maria's more, though: her eyes were narrowed and even the spark of color that had been visible that morning in Dr. Gilford's office had long ago faded into pale skin hardly darker than chalk.

"Just—how well Ryan was playing," Brigitta said, the words spilling out a bit quicker than she typically spoke. Maria could not believe the statement, that much was plain in her eyes, but Georg would not deny his gratitude. Brigitta was the same as Liesl in that regard—when she wished, she could ease anything with her words. It hardly mattered what Maria knew, for he told her Dr. Gilford's words as they drove the road that had become so familiar to them over the past weeks and months, but Brigitta's children knew nothing of what was happening, what was to come.

Hardly any of their grandchildren did; only the eldest had been told anything, not the entire truth, and persuaded to keep the worst of it from their cousins and siblings. Among the younger, though, Georg was certain some few could make a guess that something strange was happening. He did not know how they would break the news to any of them.

* * *

Sorry about the delay; I had a bit of writer's block.  



	8. Descent

**Chapter 8: Descent**

The house had been quiet for some time, perhaps an hour or two; Brigitta and her children had left for a walk earlier, the damp of the late winter morning hardly a barrier. Richard, though, had left for Germany again some days before. Even arranging the time for his short stay had been difficult, and while Brigitta could remain in the United States, he had been unable to. Both Georg and Maria knew he would return shortly, for the funeral. It had not been mentioned, but every adult in the house understood, perhaps Brigitta's eldest as well. 

Dearly as he loved his daughter and grandchildren—and his son-in-law; Georg knew himself and Maria to be fortunate that not Brigitta but all of their children that were married had found husbands and wives they could love as well as they loved one another—there were times now that he wished to be alone. Even times when he did not want to see his wife, as foolish as he knew he would feel remembering that once she had gone; he didn't much care now, though. Often, solitude brought a calm not even she could. Now, he felt he might snap at anyone.

The books that lined the walls of his study were an easy escape, one he had made few times before, though. Whenever he might have thought of hiding himself amongst their words, Maria had been there to pull him back with her smile and laughter, and the simple joy that _was_ her. Now, to see her seemed only that it would weigh on him more. He knew not where she was, though she must be somewhere in the house, perhaps glancing to the headlines of the morning newspaper over a cup of tea, reading the headlines that declared the troubles of the conflicts in southern Asia, or the protests in America. At the moment, he did not rightly care.

He hardly noticed the volume in his hand, whether it was hardbound or paperback, in English or German, French or Latin; in truth, he had not noticed that he held it upside down as he tried to read that first line again and again without a bit of comprehension of the inverted letters. It shivered before his eyes, his arms trembling as he leaned forward to press the back of his palms to his thighs. Oh God, he could not fall apart now, not when he needed more than ever to be strong. His wife needed him, his children and grandchildren needed him—every one of them needed him to remain strong, not let himself go to pieces.

It was useless, Georg decided as he slammed the book shut and dropped it on to the table beside his chair. Everything, now, it all came back to that single thought tormenting him all these weeks and months: _Your wife is dying._ He had thought it impossible to accept as he heard those words, but the acceptance had come easily, the understanding choosing to tarry. Why God would _choose_ to snatch her from him—he could not comprehend a reason.

There it came again, that haphazard pounding of his heart, rushing and slowing without reason. Georg pressed his hand to his chest, as if he could clutch his fingers around that muscle, hold its beatings steady and still that pain that flowed through his chest, just brushing his arms. But he could not do this now, not when Maria needed him to be whole. _God help me,_ he thought, lifting his eyes toward the ceiling, the white plaster filling his vision. All to hope for was that his prayer would be heard, for he could hardly hope for an answer. He might share Maria's faith, but the strength that was hers belonged to her alone, something he could never hope to borrow.

Another sharp stab burned in his flesh and his breathing came quicker, every gasp for air more difficult than the one before. He coughed, hoping to ease his lungs in the harsh exhalation, but still he struggled for air. This had to be how Maria felt, just the tip of it, as she lay in their bed each night, fighting her body just to take in her next breath. As he tried to find sleep, he could feel that need within her, that want of breath that sometimes seemed it would never be filled. There came that pain again, and all he could do was close his eyes and pretend that his hands did not shake, that his breaths were coming with ease—

"Georg?"

Oh, not now, damn her! She could not see him like this, struggling when he should only be helping her. "Georg? Are you all right? You've been in there for some time." He could hear her footsteps nearing the door of his study, each footfall measured and deliberate, but nearer with every echo. He _could not_ let her see this weakness in him, not when she had so much of her own that she could do nothing for, when this could only be worry.

Yes, that was all it was, he told himself as he pried his hand from his chest and forced his legs straight as he stood. _Only worry,_ he thought, reaching for the book he had tossed on the table at the chair's side. "You've been quiet..." Well, what did she bloody well want, him making enough noise to bring down the roof of the house? Their grandchildren would do that well enough when they returned with their mother. His knees were stiff as he walked to the bookcase, that same one he had snatched this volume from, and slipped his hand into the singular gap on that shelf. She could see nothing wrong, he decided; he would not allow her the chance to worry, as he knew she would.

"Yes?" he said, forcing his voice to be calm. If she heard that bit of fear, even panic, perhaps, in his voice, all this pretense would be for naught.

"I am sorry to bother you," she said, the door swinging open and the sound of her voice rising.

"An impossibility," he answered with a shake of his head as he glanced to her, glad that much at least he could state without dissembling. Well, everything he did now was not exactly deception, only showing something to Maria, and hoping she saw it as he wished. She, though, would maintain it as a lie, and her disapproval would be apparent. But then, Maria would worry over everyone and everything if she was permitted to.

"You always say that," she said, a hint of color marking her cheeks, something Georg was glad of; anymore, her face was pale, except for those few moments when she truly had her strength.

"If it is always true, Maria, then I will always say it." Even now, in this exhausted state, she was beautiful, her eyes still their deep blue—whenever they were not dulled by that tired cloud hanging over her demeanor—her graying hair still lovely as that first day he had met her. Her grace was the same as well, though much of the silliness he had first observed in her had fallen by the wayside as she had grown old—_older_, he corrected himself. With twenty years of age more than her, he could scarcely consider her old.

The weariness of her illness was becoming apparent, though. Despite Brigitta's presence and willingness to help her mother in anything, Maria seldom had the energy to dress in the morning, spending most of her days in her housecoat, thanking either her husband or daughter or one of her grandchildren for offering a hand to assist her in walking to wherever she meant. Needing such help had touched what little pride she had in the wrong manner, for Maria was ferociously independent in such regards; in the final weeks before Theodore's birth, she had still insisted that she needed no aid with the stairs or anything else.

But she was still the woman he loved, and nothing else mattered. "And it is true, my love." The beating of his heart surged, and he stumbled a bit from the bookcase. _Please,_ he thought, and now his heart would have quickened anyway, _don'__t let her see. Please, God, I don'__t want her to worry._

"I just wanted to make sure you hadn't forgotten the time," she said, taking another of her measured steps toward him, not a hint in her mien that she noticed anything amiss. "The past few days, I would have thought your watch had stopped, the way you have kept the hours."

"Nothing of the sort," he said, his smile fixing on his face against the growing pain and the tightening in his chest. "Just a wandering mind."

"Well, no doubt Brigitta will be wanting to discuss one or another book with you when she returns—Ryan might wish to as well—"

"He is rather like her," Georg said with a forced laugh.

"Yes," Maria said, her own mirth more genuine, though Georg did not believe a smile or any bit of laughter from his wife was true any longer. The pain filling her constantly could not allow that. "I don't know if she would find—she would find— Georg, is something the matter?"

_Of course something is bloody well the matter!_ he wanted to shout, but he could not be angry at her now. No, he was furious with himself, for his hand had risen over his heart, wanting to soothe some of the ache from that muscle. But God, he was weak. She hid her pain with such felicity, if he had not known her for so many years before this disease had attached itself to her, he might have thought her perfectly well, if a bit tired. "No," he managed, but the words were dry and lacking air. How did she do it?

Her eyes betrayed her disbelief. "Georg, what is wrong?" Maria asked with another step toward him. His heart still pounded heavily beneath his hand, and he could find no breath. "And don't shake your head and tell me 'nothing.' Please, Georg, tell me—"

"There's nothing for you to worry about," he said quickly as he grew dizzy. His wife's face was hidden for a moment beneath a gray haze that bloomed in the center of his vision, and he raised his free hand to his temple, closing both eyes against the disorientation. That pain was there again in his chest, almost a fire— _Just the anxiety,_ he thought as he opened his eyes, the fog fading in the light of their living room. "I'm fine, Maria."

She said nothing, but Georg did not think she believed the lie. He could not—would not let her worry, though, not about him; she had too much to worry about just by herself, too much to force her to hold him together as well. He loved her too well for that.

"I don't believe you," she said simply, still coming closer with her careful steps. "I want to know, Georg. I'm your wife—I _deserve_ to know whatever it is that's troubling you." She was right, he knew, but he could hardly make himself care; he would not allow her to worry over him, when she needed him more. The woman was dying, and she was the one holding him together!

"I—I'm just worried about you," he said, pulling his hand from his chest. Leaving the bookcase, he met her in her path across the room, taking her arm to steady her balance. It was part of the truth at least.

"There's something else," she said, narrowing her gaze as she looked to him. "What is that? I want to know."

"Nothing important," he snapped, the words harsher than he meant and his grip tightening on her wrist. "You shouldn't be worrying about me—"

"Whatever you won't tell me is _making_ me worry," Maria said, not tugging her arm from his hand, though as Georg glanced down, he wondered that his knuckles were not white with the pressure. "I want to know, Georg—please." She lifted a hand to his cheek, turning his face to hers, and despite the cool touch of her palm, that slight contact was enough to break Georg's resolve.

"All of this," he whispered, opening his hand from her wrist, the skin white where he had held her so tightly, "everything is so...so much, my love. It's almost more than I can stand."

"Do you think anything is any easier for me?" Maria asked, tears growing in the corners of both eyes. "Anything?" Her voice was filled with the weight of those tears, and Georg cursed himself as her cheeks were suddenly wet.

"Of course not," he said, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and holding her to him. _A fool_, he thought, _and nothing more. That'__s all you are, to think even for a minute that she is less worried than yourself._ "But you bear it so well, my love." He not seen her weep in the longest time, or felt the tears on her face against his own skin, certainly not since all of this had begun. Even when he forgot about all of this, the weight that was hers alone, she seemed so strong, much more than himself.

"I'm frightened, Georg," he heard her say, the already low words muffled against his jacket as he pressed her face to his shoulder. During this entire ordeal, he had never seen or heard her admit fear, and he wanted to curse himself again that he had forgotten she would certainly have more than her own share. He hated the thought of being alone, being without her, but she faced passing into an entire realm he could scarcely imagine, and the fear he felt as she trembled against him almost broke him. "Georg, I don't want to die."

Every word he had on his tongue was trite, and he simply held her closer, and allowed her to weep. If he had been permitted, he would have taken her fear. But all he could do was offer her comfort. Doing so little, though, seemed cruel, even when it was all he was allowed.


	9. Angel Song

**Chapter 9: Angel Song  
**

For three days, Georg had sat in his chair, simply watching her turn in her sleep, the beads of sweat popping from her face, just waiting. Hoping she would wake, that she would smile as she once had, that the sight of her mirth would ease the pain swelling in his chest. Watching, and feeling that hope die. Not that much had remained, though. Most nights, he slept in this chair as well, finding the aches of that rest in every joint the next morning.

Over these past days, Georg had tried his utmost to keep his anger under control—near Maria in particular; it was not her fault that she had been stricken by this fate—but that emptiness he knew awaited him was clawing its way into his heart already, and many times, he could do nothing but depart from the presence of whoever had brought its rising heat. After his outburst at Maria, he would not stand for her to see him in a rage again. But she could sense it, he knew, whenever he came near. Its knowledge was in her smile and her eyes.

Her breathing had been shallower of late, almost a rattle in her throat that drew shivers on his spine; it was a sound that pulled him back in time, to those years spent in the war, and every memory of the men under his command that had been lost. God only knew how difficult it had been to lose _them_—and he already knew the pain of losing his wife to an illness before her time!

Even from that first moment he had first realized he loved this woman who lay so weakly before him, he had believed that she would have to bury him, that she would be the one to shed tears at his funeral, comfort their children and grandchildren, and pass into the winter of her life alone. Believed, yet wished it would not be so; well, no one ever liked to think on what the end of life would bring, and what one would leave behind for death. It had seemed inevitable, though, no matter how he had hoped that it might end differently. There had been no other choice. But this—he would never have thought of this curse, that he should for the second time in his life bury his wife.

Their parish priest had departed a few hours before, his face gray after finishing with the sacrament. Maria was as much a fixture in their church as any person could be, offering her aid wherever it was requested and often when and where it was not, volunteering in nearly everything. The passion for the church that had driven her to Nonnberg Abbey as a young woman had only grown, it seemed, by the absence of those vows to the novitiate. Not that either of them really regretted that. No, not in the least. Their life together had been more than he had ever hoped for, Georg thought each day, and Maria had never managed to hide the joy in her eyes that spoke of the same sentiment within herself.

The children had come and gone as well, excepting Brigitta and her own children, who still remained as they had for the past days, no doubt in their bedrooms trying to find sleep. Some of the younger grandchildren had made their protests, claiming that they wished to see their _oma_, but Georg had flatly refused to allow the youngest of them into the master bedroom. Though their parents easily noticed their children's desire to see their _oma_ a final time, not one had disagreed with that decision. The first thoughts of those younger children would be for a boisterous greeting, and as well as he knew Maria appreciated the sound of her grandchildren's voices, adored it in truth, she needed rest more than she needed that comfort. It would be well, he had decided, that they remembered her with her energy, how she sang and played her guitar, not how she struggled to simply live.

Even those pleasures of her life had been denied her over the past few weeks. More often than not, her throat was too dry to sing, and broke even when she had a glass of water at her side. Her fingers had grown too stiff to be dexetrous enough for her guitar; she could not bend them around the instrument's neck, could not spread them apart to press the strings on their various frets. Georg had never expected to see despair in his wife—her fear was plain, but despair had been unthinkable, for Maria always considered even the worst of circumstances to be in the work of the Lord—but her face as he lifted the guitar from her hands earlier that week...For once, even gazing at her had been an agony, seeing the pain of her denial of that one thing that had ever been her joy. Without her music, a piece of her had died, and it was simple to see that the rest of her would not be long in following.

So near the end of everything, those years they had passed together hardly seemed to matter, to have even existed. All that he could see now was the pain in her face, the sweat on her skin—breathing was an effort for her even now—and bite his tongue to keep down the anger that would erupt otherwise. He hated this helplessness, but it was all he had now, for he could do nothing, had been able to do nothing from the start; had it been otherwise, he surely would have done something for his wife— 

"Georg?" she whispered, and he blinked, uncertain if he had heard her voice. Anymore, even the sound of a word from her could be but the wish of his imagination, driven by the need and want for her to be well and free. But she lifted her face from the pillow, stained by her sweat, a dull gleam of the moon's rays on her eyes, and he knew she had spoken, for the effort was clear in her face.

"Yes, my love?" he asked, reaching out to take her hand. Within his own, her small hands were chilled, the fingers terribly thin and brittle, covered with that same perspiration that layered her face and soaked the sheets and pillow. "Do you need something?"

"It's so cold, Georg," she said. Even this morning, when he had grasped her hand, she offered a squeeze in response, though it might only be half-hearted and weak. Now her hand hardly twitched in his, and he fancied he could feel the stiffness of the joints beneath the skin. He tried to smile as, with his other hand, he tugged the quilts and sheets closer to her body; several layers covered her, enough that she should never have been so cool. But that was the way of death, and it was never easy.

"I am sorry, Maria." Damn it all, there was nothing else he might do, nothing but speak those hollow words! If he could take everything upon himself—or perhaps only split this suffering with her, bearing the lion's share himself—he would, but this disease would refuse anything he could offer of himself, for it chosen to ravage only her. "Would you like me to fetch you another quilt?" Surely there was one more or another somewhere in the room, easy enough to find.

"No!" she said, an urgency in her voice, though the tone remained low and ragged as before. "Please stay with me, Georg."

"Of course," he said, the break in his words quiet. He did not doubt she had heard it; Maria hardly missed anything, even in the worst of times, and as he rubbed his fingers over her cold hand, he could think of no times or circumstances worse than this. "As long as I can." Here, at the end of his heart's endurance, at the beginning of this pain that would know no end, this was where he belonged, and where he would remain. Nowhere else would do.

The rasp of her breathing grew as she passed into sleep—a restive sleep filled with tosses and turns, but sleep nonetheless—now a constant hiss that filled the room as the light of the moon crossed the floor, the glowing orb passing across the darkened sky. Stars twisted gently, and the constellations danced along the horizon as the night passed. Once or twice, Georg thought he drifted into a light doze, but Maria's dry desperation for breath always woke him before deep sleep had a chance to truly catch him. But when the sharpest want of sleep clawed at him, he only gazed at his wife, and that desire faded. The last time he should see her, would that be this night? Tomorrow morning? Two days from now? Not even Dr. Gilford had been able to predict that, only to say at her last appointment that there was no further hope.

The man had refused to schedule Maria for another visit. Something about proffering false hope. Georg had been ready to slap the man across the face; with everything already pronounced, just how on earth this doctor expected either himself or Maria to maintain the slightest hope was beyond him!

But if this were the end, then Georg intended he would have every moment to gaze at his wife, to fix in his memory the living image of Maria von Trapp, the woman he loved more than was wise, as if the image of her filling his mind could alleviate some small bit of the ache that would overtake him. A terrible foolishness, perhaps, but now Georg found he did not care; a fool did not mind indulging in inanity.

The sky had lightened from midnight's black to gray and was just accepting the pale paint of dawn's pinks and golds when he heard her voice again. "Georg?" His name was weaker than before, much weaker, and it drew him from that chair quicker than his bones wished, every joint and muscle aching from sitting up all night, grasping her hand. He would have done nothing else, though, not even if Maria had insisted. Well, no, he decided; if she had merely protested, then perhaps he would have remained, but at her insistence he knew he would have left. Not now would he deny her what she wished. "Georg?"

"Yes, Maria," he whispered, crouching before her and brushing the limp, wet strands of her hair back from her forehead. "I'm right here."

"Georg—"

"Yes, my love, what is it?"

"I love you—always remember I love you." The faint dawn's light did nothing for her face, now always pale, most often ashen gray.

"As I—" No, that simple phrase was not enough now, every word was needed. "Just as I love you, Maria," he said, lifting her hand to his lips to brush the cold skin with a gentle kiss. Oh, God, why did the ache burn so deeply already? A small smile crossing her mouth, her eyes closed, and her hand fell limp in his—his heart jumped. Not now, not yet!

But that same rasp for breath rose again, loosening the sharp sting around his heart; she had only fallen asleep once again, perhaps for the final time. Her doctor had said that she would certainly have passed away within the next month, but not now, not quite yet. He lifted his free hand to her face, tracing a fingertip along her cool brow, over the gentle bump of her nose, wondering that his warm touch against her cold skin did not wake her, yet grateful it did not. Even now, he wished her to have a last bit of rest.

He could memorize her face, the feel of her skin as she slept, as though a blind man feeling for something he could not see, determined to learn its form by his hands. Learn every dip of her flesh so that when he closed his eyes, he might see her another time. Once before he had done such a thing, when he had first been privileged to call her his wife, over the course of their honeymoon in Paris. Even the simplest curve of her body had become familiar to him—and now he would know her face as well.

Just one last time, though, he had to hold her, he decided as he stood from his crouch at their bedside. He had to hold her, if only to remember the weight of her body in his arms, remember everything about this woman he had loved so deeply...and lost. Loath though he was to let her hand fall from his even for a moment, he drew his fingers from her grasp, settling her arm beside her chest. There was easily enough room for him beside her, though the mattress drooped beneath his added weight.

Every stitch of her body felt tired as he gathered her to him and let himself lay down beside her, but he felt easier, better with her so close to him. He twined his hand with hers again for his palm had felt empty without her fingers to hold; his other rested on her back, just keeping her near. Even feeling the struggling of her chest for each breath, knowing and remembering its meaning from his time in the war, Georg wanted to hold her closer still, as though simply bringing her near would keep her in life. Yet so close, that pain filling her body was plain to sense, the burden of it on her shoulders weighing as strongly on him. Not for the first time, he wanted to curse God—the devil—the doctors—everyone but the woman he loved and was meant to lose. 

"Please, God," he whispered, tightening his hold on her as that shallow breathing lessened. "Please don't take her from me, not yet." He did not think he could survive this another time—but he would have to. Though they might be grown, even the youngest already an adult, his children needed him now, the eldest surely more. For the second time, they would lose their mother. The pain would be enough on the four youngest, those Maria had borne herself, and Marta and Gretl as well, for she was surely the only mother they ever recalled, but the older ones...They would bear it well enough, but the sting would certainly be stronger, if no deeper. Losing her before her time again...

They _deserved_ to have her with them longer, every one of them. Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa—that girl certainly, whom Maria had drawn from her morose solitude—Kurt, Brigitta, Marta, Gretl, Erik, Theodore, Natascha, and Christian. Every one of their grandchildren _deserved_ to see their grandmother when they wished, when their parents permitted. Damn everything—everyone!—but it was unfair. He despised to hear such comments, but it was truth, now!

"Please," he said again, still drawing her closer. There was the pain again, the fear of loss burning against her cold frame; if he truly loved her, truly held in his heart every one of those vows he had spoken thirty years before in Salzburg...he would allow her to go. But the burn in his heart would be too strong, too painful to simply allow her to go, as though he was walking away. She jerked in his arms, and he pulled her to him, clutching her to his chest. "Please, dear Lord," he whispered, lifting his face to press a kiss to her dry, cracking lips, the rattle of her empty chest loud in his ears, "please not yet."

Useless, though, he knew, to protest what God had seen fit to do, to try to hold his hands around a flickering candle to protect it from a rushing wind that seeped through his fingers, a candle whose guttering wax stung his fingers the nearer he clutched it. She was the light of his life, and the closer he held her, the more he sensed that light dying out. She had saved him, and he could do nothing for her, not even lessen the pain racking her form. _Please, Maria,_ he wanted to say as sleep neared despite his will to remain alert, _don't leave me._ The thought made him want to weep as he fell into his own dreams, the first true rays of dawn breaking over the eastern horizon. _Don't go, my love._


	10. Alone

**Chapter 10: Alone**

"Father?" It was Brigitta's voice that woke him, and a hand that must certainly be hers touched his shoulder. There was no one else in the house—no one but her children—and that simple word was filled with a tenderness that Brigitta often displayed. "Father?" Her voice broke, and he heard her breathe deeper, more harshly than he remembered usual for her.

His eyes opened to blazing sunshine that seared his vision, the pale curtains of the master bedroom fluttering in a breeze through the window opened some time after he had fallen asleep. The cold morning was too chill for either himself or Maria this time of year, though if spring had offered its warm embrace—

_Oh, God, Maria!_ With just the thought of her, her name in his mind dropped his stomach. His arms clutched her as they had while he had slept, holding her still body to his chest, her form motionless and cool. "Maria," he said lowly, pushing himself up onto one elbow, that one tucked beneath her body, gazing down to her. "Maria," he said again. He lifted his second hand to her face, brushing the skin with his fingers. Cold, and almost icy beneath his touch.

Her eyes were closed, as though she were simply asleep. _That's all it is,_ he thought, lifting her face with a hand beneath her cheek. "Maria?" he said again. Why wouldn't she answer him? She slept soundly, so much that he had often teased her that she slept as though one of the dead, but his voice he had learned would wake her as easily as one of the children's, bringing a smile with her open eyes. "Maria?"

Drawing his hand back, her face fell to the pillow heavily. _No!_ Even when he had first heard that Maria's life was drawing to its end, he could not truly believe it—not then, not now. Oh, the mind understood those words well enough, the words on this illness, but the heart...She meant too much to him, to everyone, the pillar of their lives, that one certainty—too much for her to be gone.

"Father," Brigitta said again, tightening her hand on his shoulder as he had done when she was a child, "please. There's nothing you can do. Just come downstairs—"

"I won't leave her!" Georg snapped, tugging himself from her grasp. What would she say, that her mother would be better off now with her pain ended, that she would not want to see him so distraught? Damn them both, he did not care! He wanted his wife back! Brigitta might have loved Maria as her mother, but he loved her as his _wife_! That meant something more, surely.

_How can you think such a thing? _he asked himself, grimacing as the words echoed about his mind for a moment. _What would—_ But even to remember her, that was more painful than he could bear. He had to close his eyes against the sight of her still face; he would remember her, he _had_ to, but not now. He would not remember her in—not this way.

"I can't leave her," he whispered, even the memory of his anger draining from his voice. She had gone, but he could not leave her; even if only long enough to descend the stairs, to see those four grandchildren who must surely be wondering about their grandmother—their _oma_, he recalled, blinking harshly against the tears burning his eyes. Even if for only that short bit of time, he felt he would lose her forever. Oh Lord, he could not do this again.

"Please," Brigitta said again, and now he could hear the sobs in her own throat, creeping into her voice, not that that he had expected to find their absence; she was not Louisa. But even his second daughter's ability to conceal whatever touched her heart had diminished every day she spent with Maria. "Just for a time, to begin all the—preparations."

"Not yet," Georg said, hardly able to speak those words against the despair. So long as he was here, with her for this short time longer, he would not have to face what was to come. Here, he was not alone. He would have to let her go sometime, sometime _soon_, but not yet, just...not yet. He had not the courage to face that pain. _She_ would have some solution to this anguish, certainly, words of comfort, that same shoulder to cry upon she had offered to anyone in need of it, but how to comfort those who mourned the loss of her? Even _she_ would have to struggle to find some way of extending anything but sorrow, yet that whole idea was preposterous. There was nothing she could do now; what she could not do in life would have to remain undone in her death.

Simply allowing that word in his mind darkened the room, deepening the hollow sensation within him. But he could not outrun it forever, deny that she had left him—been _taken_ from him. God knew it would do him no good; it had not before, and nothing would be different now.

Yet the sooner he began, the sooner he allowed himself to release her...he hoped it would be easier that way, for it could not be any harder. Nothing could be worse than the emptiness within him right now. And though he still wished to hold her cool body to him, Georg lifted his arm from her back, slipped his arm from beneath her thin frame, slighter than ever before. Every limb, every joint in his body was stiff, and his chest was heavy, though the burning pain around his heart was not to be felt. He would rather have that, though, instead of this ache that was deeper and stronger.

His feet found the floor easily, bones cracking as he stood and the light of the morning—he assumed it to be morning, though it might well be past noon—burned across his face, obscuring his first sight of his daughter. But his vision cleared after a moment. Surely he looked as terrible as she did, the black-blue circles beneath her eyes a testament to the sleepless night she had passed, her dark hair tangled around her shoulders, hardly looking as though it had been brushed. Still clad as she had been the night before, the dark red dress not even wrinkled, Georg knew she had not even let herself lay down, let alone try for sleep.

Her eyes were clouded rather than bright, and he could see the weeping she bit back. "Brigitta," he began, but his own voice trembled. One still stiff leg shook beneath him and he stumbled backwards, his daughter reaching out an arm to steady him. "Thank you," he managed, stepping towards her, his leg straightening. "Thank you for everything. For being here."

For a moment, Georg thought his daughter meant to answer, to speak more of those words that would be just as hollow and empty as he now felt, words that he would nod to and feign agreement with—she opened her mouth, but no words came out. The tears he thought he had seen brimming in her eyes spilled forward, and she pressed herself against his chest, the sobs in her throat muffled. The pain wracked her body as it had Maria's, and it was no less difficult to feel; but this he could and did share, feeling it every bit as sharply as Brigitta, yet...not as she did.

He was alone again, even as he felt the tears against the corners of his eyes, his daughter burying herself in his embrace, as if she wanted to hide from the memory of her mother—_that_ would never leave this home, Georg decided. But he would have to endure it, for himself, for his children, his grandchildren. There was nothing else for it; he would simply have to finish his path alone.

No, that was not right, he was not alone he realized as he held Brigitta closer. He still had those he would endure solitude for, their children and grandchildren. Only a fool would think himself alone now, and he would not fall into that trap again. Once before he had tried that and it had failed as well as anything could—he would not force his children to endure it as well, not after everything Maria had done.

The thought of her name, not even truly of her, was enough to make him ache, it burned in his chest, but he would not allow it to become a bitter sting, more painful than memorable. Bittersweet, perhaps, but not simply bitter. He loved too well everything she had done to throw it all away.

"You might as well come downstairs, Father," Brigitta said, stepping back from him and raising a hand to wipe the thickest streams of tears from her face. "The children are in the kitchen eating breakfast. I—you will have to tell them soon. And everyone else will have to be phoned."

"Yes," Georg said lowly, his tone thick. It was best to begin now, for then the grief would pass sooner and easier; waiting to break this news would certainly do no good.


	11. Echoing

**Chapter 11: Echoing  
**

The house had not really been empty since she had gone, Georg realized, sitting in the silence of the living room, the dim light of the lamp by his side streaming over him. Brigitta had remained with her children, despite his comments about the school they were surely missing, for two weeks past the funeral, and nearly every day, one or other of his children stopped by, as though determined to keep him in some sort of good cheer. Liesl's family had just departed, herself, her husband, and the youngest of her children, her seventeen year-old son John and Katrina, her fifteen year-old. Having phoned in the course of the afternoon, Louisa had promised to stop in the following morning. That had brought a welcome smile to his face, something to look forward to.

None of his children wanted to see him alone, Georg could tell that with ease and he was grateful; but good as their intentions, they could not be with him always, and now was one of those moments, worse for their sudden absence. The house was still, only the creaks of wooden floor joints that mirrored those of his own bones or the howl of the wind against an open window filling the air against his ears, and in that quiet, he fancied he could feel the solitude, almost taste the emptiness surrounding him, burning its way into his heart. In moments like these, he could almost feel her close to him once again, as though if he called her name, she would answer from the chair that she ever sat in through the course of their evenings together, leaning forward into the pale lamp light as she tightened her shawl around her shoulders.

But then his eyes would open, and her chair would remain as empty as it had the time he glanced to it before, and he would find himself pressing his hands against his eyes to hold within the worst of the torrent of tears beating against his eyelids. The worst part of that emptiness would vanish as he forced himself scan another line of whatever book it was he held—he scarcely knew the title—until the pain of being so utterly alone bit too deeply to continue.

Even though he might pass the nights in this house with no other person for a companion, enough people passed through the doors of the home each day that he could hardly call the place empty. If nothing else, he was here. And so was _she_, her memory filling this place

The nights, though, were always the worst times. Not even the daylight existed to burn away the pain of those memories, or what it could of that sting; the darkness closed in around him, and if he were not careful, Georg found himself dreaming of her. While the illness had taken its toll on her body, filled her nights with struggles for breath and restless sleep that often eluded her until the first light of dawn, he had been there to take her hand, to tighten his arms around her as she tried to find rest, to hold her close and whisper again and again that he loved her, to hear the dry words from her chest that echoed his own. Anything to soothe her that was within him, he had been willing and ready to give her.

No, he decided with a shake of his head as he sank further into his chair, _she_ had been there to reach for _his_ hand, to be his comforter while she lay dying. Until the end, Maria had thought of everyone but herself, even when a token concern for her own well being might have been precisely what she needed. And now, everyone thought of her. He did, their children and grandchildren did; the men and women of their parish, some close friends and others he had scarcely exchanged a word with in all the years they had passed there, but all with a sympathetic gaze and some memory of a kindness Maria had impressed upon them. He had always known Maria to be kind and giving to a fault, but the pure scope of it had escaped him.

It was difficult to feel that compassion now, though, as the utter emptiness of the home settled around him. Never, not even in the course of Maria's illness, had he been alone in this place for so long. A few hours, nothing more, but now he spent days, what seemed ages, with no company but his own. The visits of his children and grandchildren were often enough, likely more often than they could truly spare, but they could not be constant, and as the weeks passed, their companionship did less to alleviate the heartache. Words only went so far, whether they be for comfort, for memory, or for escape, as those words before him on the pages of the book he held, running his eyes over the same sentence time and again. God in heaven, he missed her.

If he had ever thought to curse God, Georg knew it would be now. Every experience of the loneliness that had overtaken him as Agathe had died rose twice as bitterly now; lucky was the man who found such love once, certainly blessed was he who found it twice...and abysmally wretched, he who lost both women he treasured. And the anger was not without the same questions.

_What need did you have of her, God, when so many needed her here? How could it be any greater? How could you do this to us? _And now: _How could you do this again?_

The tears his grandchildren had wept, almost bled for their _oma,_ Georg had never thought he would see such sadness again when he first witnessed it thirty-five years before, but it was before him then, over his children once more, as if the pain had never faded for the elder among them, and new and just as wrenching for the younger. All but the youngest of the grandchildren had known precisely what was happening—and even the youngest had found some inkling of what was certain to pass—yet it had not eased the pain. Leaving _her_ for that short time the morning after she had gone to tell Brigitta's children, their eyes had almost spoken of betrayal, as if they had the same question for God that he did: _Why?_

Sighing, Georg closed the book between his hands; the words were too hollow now, if they had ever been anything but. But why bury himself in them now, for sooner or later he would have to leave them for a breath of air that would burn deeper and more painfully than if he simply allowed it to settle on him at this moment. Rising to his feet, he tucked the book beneath one arm as he reached with the other to snap off the lamp. Better, perhaps, for the darkness to be whole and unbroken—if what was real could be so hidden beneath that blanket of night, then so could the ache.

His joints were stiff as he crossed the room, each footstep echoing on the wooden floor when he tread off the carpet spread over it. Though the room was bathed with the darkness of evening, Georg easily found with a hand that space for the book he held, and he pushed it into place with a quick thrust. Why was it so disheartening to simply glance about this place, he wondered, even while it was so dark? Shadows loomed up through the gloom: a table here, a framed picture on the wall there. Nothing about it should have weighed so heavily on him but...It reminded him of her, and for that, he hated it. Perhaps sometime in the future, he could endure it without some pang of loss, some wash of anger, but not now, not yet.

He ran a finger along the spine of that book, the silver lettering beneath his skin so easy to read even without his eyes, he almost wanted to laugh that he had not known what he had held: the Bible. Maria's. But how was he to know that, when his eyes had skimmed over the words without a bit of comprehension, hardly stringing the letters together to form those words? He could hardly have known if he had thumbed his way into the first verses of Genesis with its hope and creation or Ecclesiastes, and its dark words. _And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun._

_Not evil, never evil,_ he thought. It could never be that if it were by the will of God...Yet that thought held no solace either. His best thought was to find some activity to occupy his mind this evening, for it was not yet dulled by a terrible want of sleep, and he already knew that a book would offer no hiding place. Turning from the bookcase, he caught sight of the piano, just touched by the last rays of the sunset that fought through the gentle rain of the evening. As though even nature mourned what God had stolen.

Shaking his head—the world itself seemed even further than God at this moment—Georg retraced his path; where he had sat pretending to read those comfortless words was perhaps a few feet from the instrument, more likely less. The piano had stood in silence since Brigitta and her children had departed, Ryan's talented hands flying over the keys every morning as his sisters and mother took breakfast with Georg, often with another one of his children already on a visit. But no one bothered the boy; each person grieved in one way or another, and all he could suspect was that this was how Ryan buried himself from his pain, rather as his mother had hidden herself in books when she was a child. Just as he remembered of Brigitta when she was that young girl with wide dark eyes and hair just as dark, Georg had not seen Ryan weep.

With a quick turn of his hand, Georg snapped the lamp that sat atop the piano on, blinking at the sudden glare shining on the gleaming keys, far brighter than its twin across the room had been. His hand trembled as he brought it near, and his fingers touched the keys with a wavering pressure, the tone drifting up and down as he twisted his hand to rise along a scale. Here, one finger pressed too lightly, and there, one too heavily. His wrist would not relax, and the thumb—dear God, it seemed he had never before laid eyes on this instrument, let alone once been accomplished at it! Was this how Maria had felt, when her hands had failed her as she held her guitar, her voice cracked even on the simplest melodies? As though God himself had betrayed at last what it seemed he had forever given—

No, Maria would never fall to that, Georg told himself as he sank down to sit on the piano bench, clasping his hands beneath his chin with his back to the keys and light, his shadow falling over the area rug. She would never see God as blameworthy for anything; even in those weeks and months, even the years, that she had been ill, never had she had anything but a kind word for the Lord, gratitude for what he had done, and hope for his mercy. "You were wrong, Maria," Georg said quietly, not knowing why he bothered to hold his voice low. No one else stood in the house to hear him, and God would hear him no matter how he muffled his voice. "He had no mercy, not for you, not for any of us."

_She no longer suffers,_ he began to tell himself, but he bit his tongue to hold down the curse that followed that thought. She had not _needed_ to suffer at all, and that the Lord had not seen fit to relieve her of that was proof enough that his offerings of mercy were few and far between, now. It might have been trite, but he still wished to ask, as he had for some many weeks, _why?_ There seemed no purpose in it, no reason at all that God could have deigned to inflict this upon her, unless one considered God to be cruel.

He did not think he could endure that, not again. For too long he had believed that, _would_ have continued to believe that if— And in the end, it all came back to Maria, to her wonderful faith, heart, and love. Oh, Lord, it made him wish to weep.

And still, his heart ached in his chest, not only for her loss, but that pain that had followed him for the past weeks and months, gently spreading like a searing flame through his torso, a burn that was almost too deep to sense, too strong to feel as it bent him over his knees, his teeth clenched. In spite of that burn, his eyes closed again, weariness and sorrow twin leaden weights on his mind that he could not shake off, though some time still would pass before he knew he would find that sleep.

He would see her again, certainly, as he slept, whenever that was; his rest was rarely that deep, dreamless void that he wished for more than ever now, and he knew just as well that his tears would certainly be harder to dissuade when his eyes opened to the morning sun. Even without her face in his mind this night, he was certain they would have flowed. For everything in the house—hardly a home any longer to him, even if it was not precisely empty but for him—was filled with his memories of _her_, memories and pain the passing of time could never erase.

* * *

Apologies on the delay. I couldn't get myself to write anything, and not just on this, for about five days.  



	12. Epilogue

**Epilogue  
**

How could even the rest of a night's sleep leave him so pained? As he sat straight in his chair—just how he had managed to fall asleep there when he last remembered himself sitting before the piano, he did not understand—Georg winced at the cracking sound of his back. But then, nothing seemed sensible from the night before. With a simple thought on everything that had passed in those hours, the last of them still escaping any true recollection, all he remembered was the pain:

The loneliness, of feeling that emptiness almost rattle within him. Being a shell, nothing more. Even the thought of her, just a glimpse of her face in his memory, God it _ached_! Even as he had watched her suffering, he had been certain she suffered, yet how could this be any easier, anything but worse? Reliving every memory no matter how he pushed the past aside, feeling all of the pain, none of the joy of that life they had shared together. _Not more tears!_ he shouted at himself, the burning in the corners of his eyes overwhelming his fragile strength.

He wanted to shout at someone, he hardly cared whom; anyone to stand before him and feel just the smallest portion of this emptiness that was consuming him. Perhaps just the words would help— No, Georg knew as he pushed himself forward in the chair, his bones still creaking, not again. His children had suffered in that way before, and he would not repeat that another time. Oh, he had not seen it then, but he could see it now, had been able to understand it from the moment she had pulled those scales from his eyes, and this would be precisely the same. Before it had been his silence and absence, yet the words would hurt just so much, and to see the pain of whomever suffered his pain would only sear him as well.

"I have enough on my own," Georg muttered as he stood, lifting a hand to his forehead as he did. He did not need the sadness in the eyes of another added to his conscience.

Those quickening breaths again, that pain his chest—the world spun now, and he wavered on his feet, reaching for the bookcase at his side. His fingers tightened against the flat skin of his face. _If I just close my eyes,_ he thought, _it will be gone when I open them again._ For nearly ten seconds he stood still, thinking only about the intake of a breath and the exhale, then that of the next. Lifting his lids, the light of the morning was too bright and the room still spun about him, the shadows of halls leading into it dancing along the walls.

_She would know already that something is the matter,_ he thought, forcing his eyes to remain open. If not for her own difficulties, she would have known long ago. _No. She _knew._ She knew from the first time you denied_—

His cheeks were warm now with the salty tears streaming along his face, and why did he suddenly fight the need to laugh? His lips burned as he bit them to keep those peals within—had blood mixed with those tears that now dripped from his chin?—to keep them bound within the heaving of his chest, mixed with his weeping. _Oh Maria..._He missed her just as he had missed the ocean when it had been snatched from him at the culmination of the war, and was glad of her absence as he had breathed more easily in the midst of Austria, far from the guns of his ship. So very much filled him, rejoicing and grieving at once, mixing until all he wanted was to be numb.

But perhaps there was something worth it beneath that ache, for he still _felt_ it, much as he wished he could not. However much he hoped to push aside every memory that rose to sear him another time, he could not. He could still sense that longing to be near her again, but more than that—the pain of that loss would not depart. And if he could still feel...then perhaps he could allow himself to heal, not demand another's aide as before.

As though, even now, Maria would not permit him to do what he had done before. Almost as though she had not left him, that she could only no longer stand at his side. The bite eased as the painful chortle in his chest vanished, the weeping fading as he whispered, "Maria?" The house seemed to echo her answer: _Georg?_ His hold on the bookcase lessened, for he did not need to hold himself from answering, _Where are you?_ He did not even find a need to keep his head low, to stop himself from searching for the sound of her voice, for it would never come save from his memories. But he could answer it for her: _I'__m right here, my love._

God as his witness, he loved her more than ever, but he had to let her go. He dropped his hand from his forehead, his palm swiftly wet with those tears covering his cheek, wiping aside that moisture in a path he traced down to his chin. No blood came away on his fingertips. More of those than he could ever imagine needed him here, all of him, as much as Maria ever had. He had to remain in one piece for his children, for their children, and perhaps even those children—the thought of that made him feel ancient—that his grandchildren would some day raise. If not for himself, he had to keep himself whole for them. In spite of that pain, just that thought, his grandchildren's children, brought his lips up in a smile.

If Maria could think of herself as a _great_-grandmother, when he remembered her protests at being known to have grandchildren at her young age...Somehow it was not the same as that angry laughter of those moments before, it was purer, as though a taint from himself had been banished. _Oh my love._ If he closed his eyes, he could see her face against his hand, her eyes easy as they had not been before, through the course of that meal. Everything had been right then...

It would never be the same, but it could be right again, in time.

She would have to remain alive for them, for those grandchildren that would still be born in the future. They could not see this wound within him, he would not allow that! That ache for her would never fade, but perhaps it would dull, and the thought of her would no longer bring tears to his eyes—still they formed at the corners. Not today, not tomorrow, perhaps not even next year, he knew, but sometime the pain would begin to fade; nothing lasted forever.

Except their love. He would never cease to love her. Lifting his fingers gently from the wood of the bookcase, Georg brought his hands together before his face, pressing his thumbs to his lips. _I promise you that, Maria. You would never ask anything different of me, nor would I of you._

His breaths were easier now, his heart not so fast, though still painful. Louisa would be here soon, he recalled, wiping his hands across either side of his face. As well as he knew his second daughter, he knew she would be hurting as much as himself, just as unable to permit any other person to see that pain. She would try to help him, and he would do his best for her. A clock ticked beside him on the bookcase, and Georg turned his head to glance at it. A few minutes past eight.

She would be here quite soon, but he had time enough to wash his face. The short walk would do his still aching back some good, and Maria would have been appalled if he allowed another to see his face as smudged as it must be, and his eyes so red. Another tear trickled from his eye with the first step. _And she would certainly have something to say_.

THE END


End file.
